


Δ something pretentious and maybe latin

by Kingmaker (smooshkin)



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Genre: Drabble, Fuzzy Timeline, Gen, implied adam and athene maybe, kinda angst, mostly psych
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-21 16:09:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21077693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smooshkin/pseuds/Kingmaker
Summary: David Sarif contends with a soulful workaholism and hypertension. Relationships are considered and quickly discounted. It's lonely at the top.Art is mine.





	Δ something pretentious and maybe latin

**Author's Note:**

> My own dad died in late June. Had to give fandom work a break because that shit harshes your vibe.
> 
> I've had to withdraw from most things in order to recalibrate my thoughts. Parental death can do nothing but shift your priorities and views on human relationships. Instead I threw myself into my own work, which resulted in very good things for me but sometimes you sit and wonder what you had to give up in order to be successful.
> 
> Oh. The tense and perspective shifts are mostly intentional.  
art is my own

Why are you the way that you are.  
A product of your experiences, yes. The over-arching why.  
But what about the dips and folds.

Sarif considers the time dad pushed him from his lap as a child.  
But that would be too obvious.

And yet...?

We're lonely. Could be why we've surrounded ourselves with friends (colleagues)- Yes, they're actual friends (not colleagues.) In spite of ourselves.

Mom was always there until she wasn't, though. When the emotions became too much that we tried to chase them away, she was there to encourage their gentle return. They weren't so bad, see? David?  
But when she died, the last person who unconditionally loved you was out of reach of man's technology. Her voice over the phone was only a dream.

Sometimes David wakes up to wet eyes, something his psych told him is a product of extreme stress.

But he felt peaceful in the morning, blinking them away as he looked for shapes in the ceiling. But his doctor says he has pre-hypertension.  
Hm. Maybe there's a way to fix that with aug-

...  
Why are you this way?

There's a peace in working, at least. Mindless, soulless numbers. Paying someone to answer his phone.

David feels so unlike humanity at times and yet we're constantly falling into the pit: Humans are social creatures.  
Augs can't fix it. Sometimes he wants to.

Fix it, I mean.

Many times he's tried to connect to others. He feels it, for a time. It's good. We dive in.  
But we're struggling to discern if the brevity is worth the inevitable implosion that always follows.  
And it always does.

Follows, I mean.

Maybe it's because we want something else from what everyone else wants.  
Or maybe we're too far gone, a product of the deepest-seated workaholism and we can't find the root now to trim the hands.

David recalls, in retrospect, the times he's been oblivious to the interest of others.  
Kind of like dad was. Even when they kept our ignorant company before eventually losing interest in us.  
Dad never did get over mom and spent his last twenty years lonely. He called David a few times to ask about her. 

They loved each other. But couldn't be together. It was a tragedy David didn't understand until after dad died. Mom cried.

We're coming up on his age now. And we're spending our decades lonely.

Work keeps our company.  
You can contend with work's disappointments.  
The reliability of numbers and well-calculated returns on investment were comforting. 

David likes sketching his prosthetic ideas on old-fashioned paper, though.  
The rest of our world is synthetic. Our relationships are synthetic. Empathy is a dying art.  
He even forgets if his heart was synthetic yet or not. 

There is way to fix that.


End file.
